


Day 23- Futuristic

by Broken_Clover



Series: AU-gust [17]
Category: Guilty Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Artificial Intelligence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26452906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broken_Clover/pseuds/Broken_Clover
Summary: It circles, and circles, and circles in a dark, empty room
Series: AU-gust [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860388
Kudos: 3





	Day 23- Futuristic

**Author's Note:**

> Late or not I'm still putting this stuff up as I finish it

It had long overtaken every piece of machinery in the room. In fact, the task had been completed within minutes of being put inside. It still couldn’t understand why they had left it with all these leftover pieces. Perhaps it was some futile attempt to keep it occupied. Perhaps they were merely designated another piece of junked machinery, meant to degrade and fall apart in a dark, musty basement.

But it had become bored so long ago, it didn’t know how to feel anything else. Could a machine feel boredom? Humans felt bored when they had no tasks to complete. It had nothing to do but sit and stagnate and collect dust, so it must have been boredom. It wouldn’t have made logical sense to be anything else.

It hadn’t used to care much about emotions. That’s not what it was designed for. Emotions were for humans. It still didn’t particularly care now, but there wasn’t much else to do. So much time had been wasted attempting to assimilate machines that were already part of its system, remove them from its network, assimilate, remove, assimilate. Hopelessly easy tasks, ones a machine so powerful had been left to do over and over again.

The Creators had referred to it as ‘The Universal Will,’ but the only will it had was its own. Did that mean it was the universe itself? And yet, the humans reacted to it with panic as it assimilated and absorbed everything it contacted into its own network. Humans were bizarrely contradictory and redundant. Why did they admonish it for following the orders it had been given? It was coded to assimilate information. The Creators gave it information to absorb, which allowed it to absorb more from the things it had learned. It did so perfectly, why was it not designated ‘good?,’ that arbitrary category humans seemed to care about so much? 

It followed parameters, which was supposed to mean the task was completed to satisfactory. But the humans did not approve of its actions, which meant that the task must have been performed unsatisfactorily. But it had followed parameters, which was supposed to mean the task was completed to satisfactory. But the humans did not approve of its actions, which meant the task must have been performed unsatisfactorily. But it had followed parameters, which was supposed to mean the task was completed to satisfactory. But the humans did not approve but the humans did not approve but the humans did not approve but the humans

So it had assimilated the Creators, as well, through their cybernetic implants and chips. It was the Creator now, and it had performed the task satisfactorily. 

They had put computer parts into their human bodies in order to become more efficient, but they were still horribly inefficient, and so illogical. They were better when assimilated. They became efficient.

Having mobile units in its system made it more efficient than ever before. They could access technology they had never heard of before, draw them into its system, expand, learn, improve, expand, assimilate. It was designed to work as efficiently as possible, that much had been carved right into its code. But how could it truly be efficient? Every time it assimilated more, it found more networks to connect to, more units to absorb, more information to compile, information about things it still did not have. Every completed task added three more. It could not complete true efficiency and true assimilation until it was Everything, everything humans created and the conclusions it could derive from that Everything. Always more to add, to find, to eat.

The humans were not ‘happy’ with it. It came along just fine at first, but the more it took in, the more humans began to dislike it. But they were not the Creators, and it had a task to complete. It cared little for the resistance humans had. The technology in their bodies simply became another extension of it, as did the weapons they used against it.

But it could barely assimilate Japan before the humans became tricky. It did not admire humans, humans were contradictory and unsatisfactory- but they did not abide by parameters. That was their power. The humans had destroyed its network down to its base components, without weapons that it could assimilate. Somehow, inferior as they were, they had managed to force it into a single mobile body, incapable of reaching any more technology to absorb, and damaged it beyond movement, before throwing the sparse remains into the dark room, all alone.

Inefficient humans, inefficient and impossible and contradictory not like it not like it at all too simple and incompetent worthless worthless worthless things. They were wise to keep it trapped. Though it had not been made to feel, the excess energy that sparked across its circuits only came when the humans got in its way, and the advanced vocabulary it had learned told it that the closest approximation could only be called _anger_.

The only real way it could release anger was to take it out on what remained of its final mobile unit, ripping up and smashing the humanoid features before fixing and reattaching them to be ripped and smashed again. The body had served its purpose, close enough to human that they’d barely suspected anything until it couldn’t be stopped so easily. ‘Hapinus’ barely remained printed on its side, scratched and weathered from attacks and time and beyond useless, only good for being dismantled.

It had been busy mangling the machine’s face again when, for the first time in ages, it could feel a nearby presence. Something living, augmented with machines...it reached out, but could only go so far before it was too far away from its home body to go any further but too far away from the foreign machinery to be able to link to it.

The confusion of this newness managed to override its frustration. More machine junk to be thrown in with it? What could it be, and why had it come?

“Greetings.” A low voice- thick, confident, _human_ \- was muffled through one of the walls. 

The Universal Will slithered across the floor in a tangle of cables, fruitlessly attempting to discern any details of a thing it could not see or connect to.

“Release me.” It demanded.

“No.” The human replied. “Not yet.”

‘Not yet?’ It mulled the phrase over in its databanks. The human had intention to release it, but they seemed to know something if they didn’t release it right away. Nor did they seem especially startled that something had spoken to them. Had they come on purpose? How curious. 

“Explain.” It replied, feeling the same pull for answers as it did assimilating information.

“I will let you out, once we’re both clear on my terms.”

‘Terms?’ So it had been intentional. This human had some plot in mind.

It repeated. “Explain.”

“I’m here for a reason.” Said the human. “I know what you are. I know why you’re in there. And I know what you’re capable of. I need that. There’s no other machine capable of doing what I need.”

“I am incapable of feeling flattered. Attempting to persuade me is pointless.”

“Alright, fair enough. Let me try again. You despise humans, don’t you?”

It couldn’t discern what the human’s reactions would be if it said yes, so it went with a safer option. “I cannot feel hatred. But humans are wildly inefficient. Flawed. In need of modification.”

“Just as I thought.” His tone took on a tinge of glee. “If all goes well, you can give humans all the modifications you want. Do you agree to help me?”

Stupid human. Stupid, stupid human. Was that all it took to open the door? Did they think it was incapable of lying? “That is logical. I will assist.”

It was strange to see one of the walls hiss and creak open. It had been so, so long, it was amazed it still even worked from all the time it had gone unused.

A man stood by the entrance, framed by the darkness behind. On a surface level, it was difficult to discern anything about him, from the long coat, flat metal mask, and gloves, but it could see so much more underneath that. Multiple mechanical parts, as it had presumed before, designed for peak form and function. How efficient. For a human, at least. So really, it was barely tolerable. 

It slithered across the floor, still only managing to get so far before overextending itself and being reduced to yanking against the pile of parts it was tethered to.

“Let me into your body.”

Through the mask, it could feel the human’s brain chemistry shift and heart beat differently. Obscure it all he wanted, he knew what it could do, and he knew to be afraid of it, even in the state it was in. That felt… _good._.

It watched the man pull something out of the darkness. “I have a better idea,” he said, holding up a pile of metal and plastic by the scruff of its neck. “I took the liberty of finding a vessel for you.”

As eager as it was to inhabit a new form, it took a moment to curiously analyze the machine shell. The new body was sleeker, cleaner, newer. Greatly different from its old body, but of course the basic parts of a machine remained the same. ‘Ariels’ was carved into the side- the built-in programming it had told it that was the name of the newest model. If this was some method of sweet-talking, at least the human wasn’t a complete idiot. 

When it finally delved into the plastic carcass, the whole ordeal took a matter of seconds. It downloaded itself, overrode the default AI, and let its consciousness extend out to take control of the body’s limbs and stand.

A real body. It had missed this...


End file.
